A street artist friend of mine, Bullet Beard, has recently been getting some “hate blogging” against him. Now, I’m not against peoples personal views on street art, or art in general, not everyone is going to like what you do. This is part-n-parcel of being an artist. There’s a job dedicated to it. What does annoy me though is when these “critics” have got no clue as to what they’re on about. The main gripe that I have is when anyone seems to talk about street art it somehow becomes connected to Banksy….even though it has got nothing to do with him! In this day and age it is very difficult to create artwork in a style that no-one else has ever done. Sometimes its seen as an homage, sometimes even its just coincidence, other times though it’s just a plain rip-off. However regarding Banksy, he predominantly uses stencils as it suits his style, quick and political. Stencils have been used to create art since the dawn of man….I’m not joking, even cavemen used stencils! I would imagine that there are still idiots out there that would claim that these cavemen were just copying Banksy…
Bringing things up to date a little, granted Banksy has monopolised the stencil movement. I’m sure he has inspired a fair number of people to get into graffiti, especially involving stencils. However, just because someone uses a monochrome palette (black and white in case you were wondering) does not mean that it is in any way related to Banksy. In fact, much of Banksys early work can be, in some part, be credited to another stencil graffiti artist Blek Le Rat. Le Rat started his movement in the early 80s, almost a full 10 years before Banksy had even picked up a can of paint. As his name suggests rats were used quite often in his work…..guess what, Banksy also stenciled rats all over the place. The only difference being one was in London the other Paris……oh yeah and the 10 year gap.
So the next time you see some street art and if you like it, enjoy it for what it is. If you don’t like it, that’s fine too, its up to you. What you shouldn’t do is automatically go off on some lunatic rant and assume that its someone trying to “copy/rip-off” Banksy as most likely they aren’t…..and you’ll just end up looking a total tool.
